Various types of VTOL and VSTOL crafts with non-rotary wings are known in the art. Willard Custer suggested utilizing semi-circular wings, which he produced and tested for the US DOD in 1943. These semi-circular wings are also known as the “Custer Channel Wing” (CCW). In essence, the Custer concept consisted in locating a propeller at the trailing edge of a half-circular profile that was made part of an ordinary wing. The quasi-laminar stream induced over the upper part of the 180° channel by the propeller, augments the lift.
Tests identified some definite advantages as well as important drawbacks. The most important advantage consisted in static lift coefficients of CL≧5 generated at higher than usual thrust coefficients.
The drawbacks were many and can be associated with low-speed handling, cruise-drag, stability and control, and one-engine scenarios, all singularized by the following facts:                Redirected thrust was the main responsible for the high CL to the detriment of enhanced circulation;        High drag/lift ratio is generated by the channeled segment due to the peculiar orientation of the lift-vectors;        Difficulty in thrust-control leads to asymmetric thrust and thus, to instability created by asymmetric moments;        Channel leading-edge and trailing-edge stream-separation can occur at high attack-angles;        Poor low-speed control from the complementary conventional aerodynamic surfaces;        Nose-down pitch developed from aft-propeller loading on the channel-wing;        Non-uniform flow around the propeller resulted at high attack-angles; overall poor lift/drag ratio; and one-engine-out created control problems.        
Because of its many operational problems, the USAF decided that the CCW, despite its high potential, was not yet at the point where its use could be justified.
Since then, the CCW sank in periodic oblivion with in-between new emergences of proposed improvements. Two such renewal attempts consist in boundary-layer control by pneumatic blowing and using winglets for stream containment.
Both methods resulted in excellent performance improvements.
A NASA-Langley sponsored program was accomplished at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) where the pneumatic technology used dramatically improved the CCW performances. The pneumatic configuration adopted by GTRI combined Circulation Control Wing technology applied on the outboard wing panels with blowing over curved surfaces at the trailing edge of the Channel-Section. The trailing edge blowing succeeded to greatly augment the lift and thrust deflection without need of high attack-angles. Circulation Control on the outboard wing panels further augmented lift and low-speed controllability while providing additional drag when needed.
Double semi-circular wings (or channels) completed by two lateral stabilizing tips were tested in a number of CCW. In this concept contra-rotating pusher propellers were to be fitted at the trailing edge of the channels to produce both thrust and forced circulation over the upper-side of the profiles. A number of such crafts were built and took to air with questionable results.
AIAA published in 2002 a study made by J. F. Marchman (Aerospace and Ocean Engineering Dep't.) Virginia Tech titled “A Design for a Dual-Mode Personal Vehicle.” This study discloses the results obtained by investigating a “Scoop Wing” made by disposing straight winglets on the top of an ordinary wing and by placing a single propeller between them at the trailing edge of the resulting rectangular-section channel. Once again, a substantial lift increase was obtained. Further, by closing the perpendicular winglets with a horizontal, staggered stabilizer, a box structure or “Box-Wing” of peculiarly positive characteristics was obtained at the cost of increased drag.
There is a growing need to provide effective non-rotary wings and aircrafts for vertical or short take-offs.